Like The Dragon's Fire I Burn
by Kuro Guardian
Summary: Men make plans and the gods laugh.Things never come out they way we would have them.


Like the Dragon's Fire (I burn)

The sharp wind whips his face cooling the fever inflaming in it even as it hurts. His eyes sting with the force of the wind causing tears to form. That's it, he isn't crying. He grips the reins tighter steering to the right and the ominous horizon black with a cloud of smoke that glows underneath with the light of an enormous blaze. It is a familiar enough sight in these days, the conflagration of invasion and war. Although he can not hear anything yet, he can well imagine the clamor: a sound composed of screams, the ringing of blades, and the sound of flesh beaten and torn - destroyed. It was a sound that spoke of agony - long, drawn out, heart-rending agony. Agony that didn't have to be but was.

He feels like vomiting but is empty, his chest feels tight as through about to burst spilling his soul to the wind and the earth. The sun seeks his attention by playing the coy maiden - hiding teasingly behind clouds. How many times had he dreamed of playing just this game as a child? Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the horizon beckoning to him. Shrugging off tentacles of despair he tries to court the sun's warmth. He feels like he is freezing although his face is flushed and sweat gleams upon his upper lip. His shirt sticks damply to his screaming back. A pressure pounds within his head, the pressure to make amends. He's sworn to kill them all even as he killed himself and all his dreams. The thought comes uncalled for, "How has it come to this?"

Jerking his left arm bandaged and sore he began descent, circling the carnage, but still too high to be touched by it. The desire to stay here, to drift away is strong. Honor be damned it's strong, yet still he holds true to his course. With another jerk he drops beneath the boiling clouds into the depths of hell. Everything is lucid in dancing shades of red and orange. The shadows of people dash maniacally in all directions chased by loud voices that cry out in despair or shout in jubilation. A drunkern danced gleefully in a large mulberry puddle of wine and blood - a knife jutting from his chest. This isn't where he needs to be.

Tall giants of stone and iron walk now slowly now fast in a waltz of death. They destroy everything and everyone without any sense of cause or merit. Within them seat disenchanted princes, men of blood. His dragon flies with the grace of a serpent curving around the towers that still remained to touch the sky. The fact that the marauders do not bother to attack him delineates the danger he is in. Reining in his dragon he lands in one of the larger streets. The smell of death and cooking flesh awakens a hunger that nauseates him. Staggering slightly he barely sees the stone that flies past him glazing his cheek. The slick blood that slowly glides down his dirty cheek is somehow calming. He sees the little girl who's thrown it; she is only five maybe six with cat ears and a long tail. Her eyes are huge, a stunning blue like… someone he knew and brimming with a lifetime's worth of tears. "It's all your fault, I hate you! You knew better, you knew!"

Some how he understands her meaning and can only look at her his sadness the only apology he has to give. She runs away into the madness, a little girl with a face wet with tears. He didn't try to stop her - that wasn't his place. Somewhere near a woman is being raped, the notes of her scream reminding him of someone dear. His eyes turn toward the heart of the disturbance - toward the heart of the city. He transforms the mechanical dragon into a crude robotic giant like the murdering stone giants around him. The others continued their mindless work without noticing him even as he destroys them and their comrades.

The legs of the white giant become splashed with gore and a mud composed of filth and blood. The huge blade the machine carries becomes caked in the black fluid the other giants contained. The boy, a parasite inside the giant, grows tired and bored. What was the purpose of all this useless destruction? One of the giants he slays falls into a building destroying it and three surrounding structures. Someone sobs below his vision cursing him, his father's line, finishing by denouncing the boy's mother- her honor and person. At another time he would have killed a person for doing such, but he's just too damn tired right now. Besides it isn't like the dead give a damn.

At last it was finish the only iron giant that remained was his and his destination is close. Rounding the last building in his way he comes upon a picture of damnation. A large crowd of bodies lie like chaff around the founding stone in the city square baptizing it's base in their blood like sacrificial lambs. In their prone positions sprawled upon the ground they seemed as blades of grass or fallen trees around a blast area. And in the center as through on display or the center of worship, a giant black in color but gleaming purple in the shifting uncertain light kneels in mockery to an emancipated figure - female. Her hair a warm, honeyed shade of dark blonde is in a short, but neat page cut. Her eyes are closed as through in sadness or sleep. She is nude and pierced by a large stake that went up through the junction of her legs and out through the junction of neck and shoulder. She is pale, but astringently clean and very dead. He finds himself hating her for the naïveté that led her to this, a naïveté he's never known, will never know ever again.

Someone watches her, watches him from within the black giant. Someone laughs madly and somehow it seems appropriate. That isn't really a comforting thought. A wind stale with the scent of fear and decay moves her weighted limbs, caresses her face, kisses her honeyed hair and ruffles the cape of his giant. She was only fifteen. Under the breeze creeps a sound like the tearing of heaven filament or the sorrow of a flock of crows taking flight. Gently as an angel of mercy the demon behind this disaster touches down on the black giant's shoulder. It's wings are as dark as the shadows that hide it's face and the clouds that block out the sun overhead. Feathers float down from above it, feathers from it's own battered shoulders. The boy within the giant wishes to run away he knows this confrontation will kill something vital inside him. A piece of tinder breaks within a nearby fire casting a sudden flare of illumination on the demon's face. And somewhere inside Van begins to scream.

He flies upright hair flying about his head, sweat dripping off his face and sliding down his chest and back. The drops are so cold, so very cold causing him to shiver and clutch the damp sheets. A hot, dry hand rubs his shoulder making him jump. "Van it's only me." Normally the low, soft baritone beside him would calm and soothe him. But that face, the demon's face with its cold eyes, that of the monster who killed that nameless girl and that faceless city among a million other towns and cities. That face the one that broke his heart was looking up at him and smiling. That face was the face of his beloved brother - Falken.

Beautiful Falken pale skin so soft and taunt over his lithe form. Sleep has spilled his hair into his eyes making him seem messy and sweet. It was just a nightmare and nightmares are lies we tell ourselves. That same dry hand with its strong violinist fingers again touches his arm pulling him down to lie beside him again. "My poor Van, Paxis te dono." And then his lips, so sensual and cruel, ruthlessly pursue Van's own. Ruthless… He gasps as he is crushed into the bed they share against all the threats and whispers of the court, his hot sweat-slick body sliding against Falken's cooler, toned one. He feels Falken's hard heat, as slender and long as the rest of him, against his thigh.

"Van, you're so pretty when you cry. And yet I can't bear to hurt you." Lies. And then Falken lifts him onto his cock slamming inside for the fourth time that night. Ah, the sweet burn of it was intoxicating; just enough to drive the dream by to the edges of his mind. And he remembers how important the night is for tomorrow is the 'Test of Fire'. A true king was forged in the Dragon's Fire burning within its heat but not consumed by it. Falken burned within him and he was so scared this wouldn't last. Why did his brother take him so much tonight? He acted like he wasn't coming back. His grip tightens on Falken breath rushing past his lips as he strove to not to drown in his fear. They were getting so close. Falken stiffen and gasped hoarsely, "I love you Van".

His ears ring with the din of his own screaming. Someone's arms hold him tightly. He opens his eyes panting hard aware of another's body heat and of his own shameful arousal. Hitomi holds him rocking softly and slowly humming a lullaby. This girl she, Gods he needs her! "Hitomi…?" She lets him shrove her onto her back on the ground. She closes her eyes; he wishes she wouldn't do that. When she looks like that its as through he were molesting the sleeping… or a corpse. He yanks open her shirt yanks up her skirt. It'd been strange to discover that first time that she was not a virgin. But in hindsight it's just as well, his conscious is burdened enough. He fumbles with his pants shivering but not with any sense of cold.

He wants to slow down and he doesn't want to use Hitomi like a common whore, but he can't stop, can't slow; can't think about it. He knows he's being too rough, but the nightmare lurks in the corner of his vision and only this frenzy keeps it at bay. The dark of the night makes her pale skin glow like alabaster and somehow he can see the stake running through her. She was still alive when they did it…still alive and screaming. He shuts his eyes and continues thrusting as through this were nothing more than a training exercise to be finished quickly. He pushes his way to completion - to emptiness and a weary kind of calm. He lays on her and knows - knows she strives not to cry. "Pretty when you cry…" He closes his eyes trying to return to his dirty sense of harmony. And stuffing his feeling, his pain below he feels a shifting like the curling of a dragon within his belly.


End file.
